Distress Signal

by Mary E. Lambert

  That made absolutely no sense to Lavender. They were in the wilderness. No food. No shelter. No phone service. Even her radio had failed them in this isolated, endless stretch of land that couldn’t quite decide if it was a desert or a forest.

  “What were you thinking?” she said. “This is a terrible place to be stranded and on your own. Next time you run away, at least choose a place with water.”

  “I wasn’t planning to get lost in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “I’m not that stupid. I was going to sneak away when we stopped in Willcox.” Seeing the puzzled look on Lavender’s face, he clarified, “The rest stop. Remember?”

  “Yeah, but that’s way outside of town. It’s almost as bad as being out here.”

  “Not really,” John said. “I’d just have to walk a few hours to get to a bus stop from there. I looked it up online.”

  “If that was your plan, why didn’t you do it?”

  “I might have, but then I wound up with a seat buddy.” He gave her a pointed look. “I wanted to sit alone on the bus so I’d have a chance of disappearing without being noticed.”

  “What?”

  “I know I wasn’t very nice, but you kind of messed up my plan.” He looked around with a faint smile. “I mean, that was the first time on this trip that you messed up my plan.”

  That made a weird kind of sense, and Lavender felt a little better. At least he hadn’t turned into an angry hermit crab because he hated her; he just wanted the opportunity to sneak off without getting caught. It still didn’t explain why someone so smart and talented and popular would want to run away.

  “I guess I don’t get it,” Lavender said, pressing her hand more firmly to the front of her shirt. “Why would you even want to run away? Did you have a fight with Kyle and Jeffrey?” She remembered how he’d been keeping his distance from them the previous day.

  “What?” John said. “No.”

  “Oh, then why?” Sudden inspiration struck her. “Does it have to do with your parents fighting?”

  John looked at ground and made a few scuff marks in the dirt and pine needles. “It doesn’t really matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just does.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She tried again. “Because I’ve known you forever. You’re in my class. I care about what happens to you. You’re my friend.”

  He looked skeptical. “I wouldn’t really say we’re friends. It’s not like we’ve ever hung out outside of school.”

  “What do you call this?” Lavender laughed and threw out her uninjured hand, gesturing at the pine trees around them. “We’re not in school now. We escaped from a flood together. You saved my life when I was about to get attacked by a bear. You pulled a splinter out of my hand. If that doesn’t make us friends, I don’t know what will.”

  A breeze whispered through the pines above them. Otherwise, all was silent. The quiet stretched so long that Lavender was about to give up on an answer. And when John did finally speak, he looked as surprised as Lavender felt.

  His words come out in a rush like water breaking through a dam. “I was going to visit my brother. He’s in college, and he’s doing this semester at a school in Monterrey, Mexico. I can take a bus there from Willcox. I just had to get to the bus station, and then I could go see him. I needed to get away from home. Ever since he left, it’s been really, really bad. My parents told me they’re getting a divorce, but nothing’s changed. They still live in the same house; they scream and yell and fight all the time. I think they hate each other. Sometimes I think they even hate me, but Jackson doesn’t. And I miss him so, so much.”

  He stopped then, and a little siren went off in Lavender’s head: a warning sound, similar to the red alert from Star Trek. He looked like he was going to cry, and she did not know what to say or do. This wasn’t something she could fix. This wasn’t something she could make better.

  After a moment, she said the only thing she could think of. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? It’s not your fault.”

  “I know. I’m just sorry that that’s happening to you. It sucks.”

  He kicked the ground once, hard. A low cloud of dust filled the air, then settled. “It does.”

  Lavender pulled her hand from her chest and awkwardly examined the cut.

  “You look like you were shot in the chest.”

  “What?” Lavender looked down. The front of her T-shirt was smeared with blood. “Oh no,” she said. “Do you think I’ll attract bears and mountain lions? Are they like sharks? Do you think they can smell blood?”

  “I don’t think so,” John said, “but if you’re worried, you can wear my sweatshirt.”

  That made her feel better.

  “Lavender! John!” Rachelle’s voice echoed through the high desert.

  “Where are you?” Marisol’s shout joined Rachelle’s.

  “Coming,” Lavender answered as loud as she could.

  “We should get as much of this as we can.” John waved a hand at the scattered pieces of firewood that they’d broken off the tree branch.

  Lavender nodded.

  He carried most of the wood—she couldn’t hold as much while trying to protect her cut hand from more splinters, dirt, and debris. As they made their way back to the ring for their campfire Lavender asked, “How were you going to pay for the bus ticket?”

  “Oh.” He shifted his armful of branches and twigs. “I had some money.”

  “How much is a ticket to Mexico from here?”

  “Uh—” He looked away, then said very quickly, “It’s pretty expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “Like more than a hundred dollars.”

  Lavender was impressed. She wondered how he’d gotten that much money. Maybe his parents gave him a really good allowance, or he’d been saving up all of his birthday money. Before she could ask, they were interrupted by both Rachelle and Marisol, who shrieked in horror and sprinted over to help her when they saw the blood smeared all over Lavender’s shirt.

  As they sat at the foot of the mountain, the last of the morning chill disappeared. Lavender warmed her hands by the fire as they grilled the cactus on sticks. Marisol’s idea had been a stroke of genius.

  The nopales were slimy, and it was hard to keep them on the sticks. But everyone was so hungry that they agreed it was worth any amount of time and trouble once they skewered the cactus and cooked it. When a piece fell, they picked it right back up and ate it even with the dirt still on it. Except for Rachelle. When she dropped a cactus sliver on the ground, she gave it away and started over again.

  The texture was mushy and a little sour. The flavor reminded Lavender of a cross between asparagus, lemon, and a pickle. Marisol said she’d had better—the wild ones cooked over a campfire were different than what she’d eaten from the store.

  But no one complained. The cactus was moist. It felt like a smooth balm on Lavender’s dry lips. She savored each bite, trying to suck the water from it and letting the texture fill her mouth with saliva. Nothing would have tasted as good as a glass of cool, clean water. But this was the next best thing. Her bottle was almost down to the last quarter, and with a quick glance around the circle, Lavender saw that no one else was doing much better. Rachelle’s was the lowest of all. She had maybe two or three sips left.

  “When we get back,” Marisol said, “I’ll ask my grandma to make her sopa de nopales for you so you can see what it’s supposed to taste like.”

  “Is she a good cook?” Rachelle asked.

  “The best,” Marisol answered, and Lavender nodded. She’d had more than one of Marisol’s grandma’s home-cooked meals.

  “I can’t wait to try it,” said Rachelle. Lavender looked at her in surprise. That was the last thing she expected Rachelle to say after the way she used to make fun of Marisol for basically everything. Maybe Rachelle had changed … People could change, couldn’t they? “But if I could eat an
ything right now …” Rachelle continued. “I would ask my mom to take me to Dutch Bros for a large mango smoothie with passion fruit drizzle and extra whipped cream.”

  “I bet she’d do it,” Marisol said.

  “What?”

  “Take you anywhere you want to go,” Marisol said. “They’re probably so worried about us.”

  Lavender nodded. For a second, Lavender let herself think of her parents. She would bet any amount of money that they were already helping to search for her or, at least, in their car on the way to Chiricahua.

  John was silent. He stared directly into the fire, avoiding eye contact with all of them and saying nothing about his parents. With a little flash of insight, Lavender realized that this must be a really awkward conversation for him. After what he had told her, she knew his home life wasn’t very good just now. So she tried to change the subject, saying, “Hey, John, you didn’t say what you would eat. You know, if you could have anything right now?”

  He looked up from the fire, his expression dazed, but after a few seconds, he smiled at Lavender and said, “Oh, um, I’d probably ask my older brother to take me to Outback. I want a steak and a Bloomin’ Onion and a Coke. Or water, actually. Lots and lots of water.”

  “I love Outback,” said Lavender. “But right now, I’d ask my dad to make his three-cheese risotto. I could eat an entire pan of it.”

  “It sounds really gouda,” John said.

  Lavender laughed.

  “I don’t get it,” Rachelle said.

  “Gouda is a kind of cheese,” Marisol explained.

  “Seriously? That is such a dad joke,” Rachelle said.

  “Yeah,” John agreed. “It’s cheesy enough for a dad joke.”

  By the time they had cooked every last bit of the cactus that Marisol and Rachelle had managed to skin and John put out the fire, Lavender was feeling energized and optimistic. She was ready to climb the mountain: blisters, sore muscles, cuts and scrapes and everything else. She just knew that the four of them could get to the top and get help. Whether they found a trail or hikers or got a cell signal, it was time to get out of this wilderness.

  Now if only …

  Rachelle would keep her mouth shut about sardines …

  And they didn’t collapse of dehydration …

  And they didn’t run into any other wild animals or natural disasters …

  Then they might all have a chance at living long enough to make it to seventh grade.

  But as they climbed up the mountain and the harsh reality of midday set in, Lavender did not see how they would ever make it. She wished she’d saved some of the nopales to eat as they climbed. It hadn’t even occurred to her while they sat around the fire, feeling full and triumphant from scaring away a bear. She shouldn’t have eaten so much or so quickly. The meal churned in her stomach, making her nauseous and desperately thirsty. Maybe if she’d saved it to eat slowly, Lavender wouldn’t be so miserable now.

  She tried to ration sips of her water, and she managed not to say “I told you so” when Rachelle paused next to a tree with bark so rough and patchy it looked like alligator skin and held up her Hydro Flask.

  Rachelle unscrewed it and tipped it.

  At first, Lavender’s heart lurched into her throat. She thought Rachelle’s mind had snapped under the pressure and she was dumping out her water supply on purpose. But nothing came out. Not a single drop.

  Lavender knew that yesterday she would have rubbed it in. “What did you expect when you wasted it on cleaning your feet?” But somehow, today, Rachelle seemed like less of an archnemesis and more like an uneasy ally. She still resented Rachelle, but she was also starting to see a side of her that she could almost respect.

  “Here.” Lavender held out her own water bottle.

  With a small smile, Rachelle took it and drank a sip.

  “Don’t take too much,” Lavender said. It was down to the last eighth; two or three gulps, and it would be gone. Rachelle took only one small swallow and handed it back. They all took turns sharing with her as they continued the ascent, searching desperately around every curve in the terrain for a trail or a backpacker or any hint of rescue.

  The day dragged on with no sign of help, and Lavender started to feel as if she’d been on that mountain her entire life. With each plodding step, her head pounded. Her hands felt heavy, swollen, and irritated. She did not know if it was from the splinter or from dehydration or something else altogether. Rachelle was repeatedly claiming that dehydration could cause swollen fingers, but what did she know? And how, Lavender wondered, was she still talking so much?

  As the climb grew steeper and more treacherous, the others had fallen silent. Lavender assumed that, like her, they were suffering from a terribly dry throat and also breathlessness. Lavender continuously looked from side to side, trying to measure the ascent of the mountain against the horizon so she could mentally calculate the angle they were climbing. To her aching muscles, it felt like a ninety-degree climb, but she knew that was not possible: They were not on a sheer cliff face. Realistically, she calculated it was probably closer to a twenty-five-degree angle—steeper in some places and less steep in others, but that was her guess.

  She was probably wildly wrong. Not because she was bad at mental math, but because she was exhausted. The bone-deep fatigue pulled at her arms and legs, pounded on her brain, and made clear thought impossible until all she could think of was putting one foot in front of the other. There was no room for thought beyond taking the next step.

  Pausing for a rest, halfway up the mountain, Lavender crouched in the shade of a large boulder. She unscrewed her water bottle and lifted it to her lips, but it was empty.

  When Lavender was in fifth grade, her class had taken a trip to the Arizona Science Center, and during the educational program, one of the museum employees dipped a tennis ball in liquid nitrogen and then hit it with a hammer. The ball shattered into tiny frozen fragments.

  As Lavender stared into her empty water bottle, she felt like someone had frozen her with liquid nitrogen and then smashed her with a hammer into tiny shards that could never be put back together again.

  “Does anyone have any water left?’ she called in a hoarse voice to the others, who were sitting nearby.

  Marisol and Rachelle shook their heads. John held up his water bottle and swished it around. “I’ve got enough for maybe one sip each.”

  Lavender blinked. John’s bottle reflected in the sunlight and hurt her eyes.

  “No, it’s your water,” Marisol told John. “You should drink it.”

  But John shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ll share. Here, Lavender.”

  Head pounding, Lavender forced herself to walk the few steps to John.

  “We’re already dehydrated,” Rachelle was saying. “We definitely haven’t been drinking the amount that a person needs, especially when you’re doing as much physical activity as we are. At this point, a couple of drops aren’t going to make a difference.”

  “Then I’ll drink your share,” Lavender said. She was so parched that every drop felt like it was the difference between life and death. But when she took John’s bottle, Lavender only let herself take one small sip. In silence, she passed it to Marisol, who took a sip, then to John, who took a sip before passing it to Rachelle.

  In spite of her words, Rachelle pressed the bottle to her lips, but she did not finish the water like Lavender had expected. Rachelle left enough for John to drink the final drops. But he didn’t. In grim silence, John screwed the cap back on, and they stood and continued their climb.

  Lavender felt a heavy weight descend over the group. Her confidence had completely dried up. They were in serious trouble. They were getting dangerously close to the twenty-four-hour mark that Marisol had told her about.

  Only Rachelle was in denial. She chattered without pausing as they maneuvered between rocks and scrabbled uphill. Lavender grew almost dizzy listening to Rachelle bounce from one topic to the next. She blathered about her
blisters, her soccer team, her favorite YouTube channel, her lost phone, which she thought had a warranty, and even the class’s missing telescope money. Rachelle tried to get everyone to say what they thought had happened to it, but Lavender didn’t make a guess. She was breathing too hard to bother with words.

  Before long, Lavender stopped paying any attention. Rachelle’s one-sided conversation blurred into a haze of background noise, which lasted until Marisol’s voice broke through. She said exactly what Lavender had been thinking: “How do you even have enough energy to keep talking?”

  The entire group came to a halt.

  “I guess I’m in really good shape.”

  “So’s John,” Lavender croaked, thinking of all the sports he played, “but he’s not talking a mile a minute.”

  “My throat is too dry to talk,” John said.

  In answer, Rachelle poked a lumpy yellowish-brown object out between her front teeth.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “It’s a pebble.”

  “But why is it in your mouth?” Marisol said slowly, as if she was talking to someone on the brink of a mental breakdown.

  “Relax,” Rachelle said. “It’s just a trick my grandpa told me about. If you’re thirsty and there’s no water, you can suck on a rock.”

  “Oh, I think I’ve heard of that before,” said John. “Isn’t it an old trick soldiers used?”

  “Yeah, you get a lot more saliva in your mouth,” Rachelle said. “Then you don’t feel as thirsty.”

  “That’s not going to stop us from being dehydrated,” said Lavender.

  “No, it won’t,” Rachelle agreed. “But it’s better than nothing.”

  “Heck, I’ll try anything,” said John.

  He and Marisol both bent to find rocks. Lavender wasn’t so sure.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bad idea?” she said. “What if you inhale it and choke?”

  “I know the Heimlich maneuver,” Rachelle said.

  “Or you bite down and crack a tooth?”

  Rachelle shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s a good option. We ran out of those when the flood tried to wipe us all off the face of the Earth.”